#'Please dear I'm begging you can we name this one something that my subjects north of the Forth can pronounce'

[the-busy-ghost]

Got to love when St Margaret plainly started running out of alliterative Old English names for her kids and after Edward, Edmund, Ethelred, Edgar, and Edith she eventually settled for naming the remaining three Alexander, Mary, and David

Or do you think Máel Coluim was just getting too mixed up and had to put his foot down

#The man had like at least nine possible eleven kids that we know about #Duncan and Donald were bad enough but five kids whose names all begin with E and four that begin with Ed is just a nightmare #'Please dear I'm begging you can we name this one something that my subjects north of the Forth can pronounce' #St Margaret in a deliberately sweet tone: 'Darling I didn't realise it was causing you such hardship I'm so terribly sorry' #'It was just that after I'd pushed the fifth one in ten years out while singing the Te Deum the whole time to distract from the pain' #'And all the time I was concentrating on that lovely new altar cloth I was embroidering' #'While writing a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury about sending me some more of those lovely Benedictines' #'Edith was merely the first name I could think of; but if it's REALLY causing you such hardship don't worry we can name her something else' #'If it's really so hard for you' :) :) :) #Malcolm backing out of the room looking very embarrassed 'No no it's no trouble dear I'll just... I think I have to crush a rebellion now... #Alternatively it's entirely possible Malcolm was on board since aggressively giving your kids Old English royal names #When your neighbour is a Norman conqueror is kind of a political move #But it's fun to wonder #Technically Alexander Mary and David are even better examples of one upmanship #We've graduated from Old English kings and queens to legendary and then heavenly kings and queens now #Ok so Alexander could also ahve been named for the pope #Did they know that with those last three they'd be setting the pattern of Scottish royal names for centuries #Because the first five really didn't catch on #Not many Scottish kings cutting about called Aethelred #But better than Malcolm's first wife #Poor Ingibiorg never got to go around calling her kids by her second husband things like Sigurd and Olaf and Rognvald #Nope it was Donnchadh Domnall and possibly another Mael Coluim #writing log